The tour of this makerspace just outside Denver and Boulder, Colorado took place in September 2019, long before COVID-19 flipped spaces like these on their heads. However, as of today, TinkerMill is open for business, albeit with several precautions in place. Take a peek inside this massive, and well-equipped space in the video below with…
Between September 16th-20th this year, Denver was overflowing with out-of-towners for Denver Startup Week. (Which was much to the dismay of native Denverite Uber passengers.) Here, you can read about the many physical product development related goings-on at this free conference. There were a lot. See below for the video: The Venue I try not…
This tour of MADE Makerspace in Barcelona, Spain was my last stop of jet setting through Europe to learn about HW startup culture there. Watch the video below to take the tour with me, or read on for details! I’d like to give a big thank-you to Oriol Fernandez of “MAking props” for taking the…
Recently, I toured Europe to learn about how hardware startups grew there. Where is the Euro Silicon Valley? How are startups treated there compared to in the U.S.? How does networking, funding and team-building work over yonder? One of my stops was Warsaw, Poland. Here, I’ll share what I learned touring the FabLab powered by…
We stopped by Gowanus Audio in Brooklyn, NY to get a step-by-step rundown of their DIY Bluetooth speaker class. Founder, Pete Raho, generously shared details and tips in the video below so you can make it yourself! Watch the Video For Explanation on All the Things: 3 Options for How You Can Build This: Go…
Zippable is a novel approach to make most any stuffable, huggable 3D fabric-based shape you can think of. As the name suggests, a zipper is used as the closure system. But what’s really cool about Zippables is the super long spiraling zippers. The spiraling motion as the zipper is closed, magically transforms a twisty, curvy…
There’s no denying that voice interfaces are the future of interaction design. Whether it’s through Apple’s Siri, Amazon’s Alexa, Google Home, or any number of chatbots and new AI technologies, ‘the invisible interface’ eschews screens in favor of speech to feed us information or take commands. Thankfully, affordable development boards like the Raspberry Pi have…
While nearly every material requires some sort of a process to bring it from a raw state to a finished design, few materials demand the attention of the creator quite like glass. From the heat to the constant movement, and the teamwork often involved in creating larger pieces, the process of creating glass objects is…
Jack Lennie is a recent Edinburgh-based product design graduate with a first class honors degree, a SolidWorks certification and a national award under his arm. He also just released a downloadable build kit for manufacturing a motorcycle in nearly any modern workshop. Not bad. Designed to breathe a “new lease of life into damaged or…
Unless you’ve been under a rock, you’ve likely seen a lifetime’s worth of ‘Maker’ videos since the movement took off as a choice of narrative for both independent filmmakers and marketing teams alike nearly a half-decade ago. Unsurprisingly, the movement has been met with a fair share of parodies over the past few years – but…
Although it’s never been easier for craftsman-entrepreneurs to establish their own companies thanks to everything from streamlined payment systems to website building services, finding international success selling firewood for $1000 per bundle surely isn’t a very common success story. Yet for Canadian entrepreneur Jesse Horn, the opportunity to establish his own niche within the North…
Although Etsy is a hotbed for craft disasters ranging from recycled coffee creamer bird feeders to portrait paintings of Dr. Phil, the online craft marketplace currently holds a valuation of $3.5 billion – thanks to an IPO that the company successfully completed six months ago. Up until now, the company has been fairly strict about…
I want to introduce you to someone. Let’s call this person Gary. Gary works nights and weekends in a garage on a project based on the same technology you work on. Gary is a Maker. Picture this, you stand around the water cooler complaining about how last year’s holiday party was better because they had…
As if throwing a ceramic vase, bowl or tea kettle on a wheel doesn’t already demand enough skill and patience with your hands, one can only imagine the amount of patience it would take to perform the exact same process on pieces that measure just 1″ tall. Yet, these ceramic miniatures are exactly what self-described…
Running any form of business that revolves around manufacturing can be challenging – especially for small businesses with limited resources and bandwidth. While a well-organized team and sufficient capital investment are a great starting point, challenges ranging from project management and client relations to asset management and billing can be just as tough to wrangle…
For filmmaker Ben Proudfoot, churning out high-quality documentaries that tell the story of a Maker’s process is a walk in the park. The Nova Scotia-born filmmaker attended the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts in Los Angeles and has since gone off to win dozens of festival awards worldwide and even a qualification…
Crowned as one of the best iPad Apps of the year by Apple, the GoldieBlox and the Movie Machine App is super-crazy and super-delightful. Designed used alongside the GoldieBlox Movie Machine engineering toy for girls (and boys!), I had the time of my life simply exploring this creative engineering and movie-animation app. First things first:…
While Maker, coding and general DIY culture has exploded in popularity over the past 10 years, there was once a time where the only regular industry updates and project builds didn’t come from a quick Google search…they came from your monthly Popular Electronics magazine. The popular hobbyist magazine, which was founded over 60 years ago…
Having been manufacturing skateboard decks since 1991, Long Island, NY-based Chapman Skateboards have been the number-one supplier of skateboard decks for the largest East Coast skate brands including Zoo York, Hopps, Supreme, Infamous and a host of other smaller brands. By the looks of the outside of the factory, you would think that their facility–roughly…
With over 60,000 people in attendance last year, MAKE Magazine’s World Maker Faire NYC is more than just a science fair now; it’s a full-blown circus. The annual gathering of tinkerers, hackers, DIYers and those that love them had another successful year this past weekend thanks to good weather and a growing list of ‘Makers’…
If you’ve been hanging around the SolidSmack block for awhile, chances are your hands are sticky from drinking too much root beer and your stomach hurts from eating too many cheese balls. You’ve also likely come across one of our favorite YouTube channels Frank Makes. Created by retired architect and master woodworker Frank Howarth, the…
While we’ve seen quite the gamut of ‘3D printed ceramics’ over the past few years, few executions ever explored the possibility of adding detail to each individual extruded layer. Aiming to create 3D printed ceramic pieces that more closely resembled historic and detailed artifacts rather than a layered Play-Doh bowl, Dutch artist Oliver van Herpt…
We’re always talking about the future of design, the future of technology, the future of MAKING. In a world where swimming pools can project live feeds of some of the world’s most premier diving spot for a fully-immersive virtual reality experience, a world where ‘Smart Homes’ will be able to be controlled by emotions rather…
We’re pretty sure that if you were to open up your nearest dictionary and open it up to the word ‘Insanity’, Colin Furze’s name would be somewhere in there. The plumber, stuntman, inventor, and filmmaker from Stamford, Lincolnshire, England is known for his wild and downright impressive inventions ranging from ‘The World’s Fastest Pram’ (complete…
Founded in Sheffield, England in 1902 (also the birthplace of stainless steel), Ernest Wright and Sons has been churning out some of the best scissors and shears in the world for everybody from professional tailors to barbers and everything in between. Unlike mass-produced offerings such as the iconic Fiskars Orange-Handled Scissors, each pair of blades…
Already the king of crowdfunding, Kickstarter has announced today that they will speed up the approval process in an effort to make it easier for people to get their campaigns launched and their ideas out in the world. Announced in a blog post this morning from Kickstarter CEO Yancey Strickler, the new ‘Launch Now’ feature…
Since its launch in 2006 in San Mateo, California, the Bay Area Maker Faire has been the premiere event for makers, DIYers, hackers, and anybody with an interest in making things real. With everything from soldering clinics to a 3D printing village, it’s hard to leave the event feeling uninspired to get that wacky side…
We’ve seen our fair share of April Fools’ Day product design spoofs over the past few years that have actually been somewhat believable…if it wasn’t for the fact that the press release came out on April 1st. Yesterday was no exception and between products like the Sphero SelfieBot and the falconry-inspired ‘Twitter Helmet’, those in…
Founded in 2010 by book editor Patrick Mulligan and graphic designer Ben Gibson, the mission of Brooklyn-based Pop Chart Lab was to do one thing and do it very well: render all of human experience in chart form. Three years later, the two have found themselves with new titles (Patrick as Editorial Director and Ben…
Make the World. There are a lot of people talking about the shake up 3D printing is bringing to the manufacturing space and a few actually making it all happen. Our friends at Adafruit have announced a new month long Google+ Hangout series that takes a deep dive into the stories that are shaping this commonly stated…
Just one month fresh out of college, graphic designer Jeff Sheldon of Downington, PA found himself moving through quite a few life milestones: he married his high school sweetheart, relocated to a different state (Vermont), and started a full-time job. Soon after, the young designer found himself continually daydreaming about launching his own brand centered…
This week EngineerVsDesigner sat down with one of the design engineers behind the all-in-one ‘Machine in a Box’ Microfactory, Mr. Jeremy Fryer-Biggs of Mebotics. The Microfactory is a combination 3D printer, mill, and laser etcher. We’ll talk with Jeremy about everything from how the individual components on the machine compare to other systems on the…
File this under your ‘reasons to get a CNC machine in the near future’ if you don’t already have access to one. OpenDesk is the new open source furniture design resource from the team behind FabHub that aims to explore new models for open and collaborative design of digitally fabricated free modern furniture designs that…
This week EngineerVsDesigner sat down with two guys who are connecting Makers to the People…Mr. Mike Salguero and Jim Haughwout of CustomMade.com! Believe it or not, CustomMade is one of the earliest E-Commerce sites and has been around since 1996. Recently, Mike and Jim have been putting CustomMade into sixth gear to connect even more…
There’s nothing quite like curling up in a one-of-a-kind leather safari chair, made to look distinctly like the one you remember from your childhood trip through the Serengeti. A pack of lions got that one, but this one… this one is just like it, but even better, because this one is custom made. I bet…
Aiming at becoming the flagship store for the UK Makers Community, the iMakr store is getting ready for their highly-anticipated grand opening later this month. As previously reported by SolidSmack, the store will stock all things Maker on two stories of retail space. However most importantly, will it be an early example of the ‘office…
Barely coming off the heels of the OpenRov open-source underwater robot project he developed at TechShop, David Lang has since marketed himself as an ‘(unexpected maker) Maker’ to help ease those with weak knees into the Maker Movement. After losing his desk job, he decided that he would do something other than stare at the…
As a designer, engineer, or maker, how will you be able to keep pace in an industry that is consistently being disrupted by “New Faces” and creating entire businesses literally overnight? As products come to market faster than ever before, what is the best strategy towards placing yourself in an ever-increasingly competitive creative global economy?…
You know it, I know it, everybody knows it: The democratization of technology is changing everything from the way we design to how we design it. The self-manufacturing mindset is driving innovation while redefining DIY in ways we’ve never seen before. It seems as though the Maker subculture is growing exponentially and everybody is calling…
Inspired by the Dutch Modernist painter Piet Mondrain, East London Designer Hugo Passos gives an updated spin on the “old artisanal way” by avoiding machinery in his Modernist product designs.